The Blacksmith and the Myth-maker.

The old Sage, the Blacksmith and his apprentice, young and untrained, busied themselves over the unhatched dragons egg. It was large, the shape of 8 men to be told, It had been moved from time to time, to care for it. It was the young girl’s charge to ensure it was well cared for. She would fire the forge, to keep it warm, she would sharpen tools across its shell, a blacksmiths secret skill.

The young miss, dirtied and a mess worked hard with a frustrated smile. As if she was a beast possessed tending its young. The mystery of a dragons egg, some were worthless, some could be saved, none knew the truth of each.

The blacksmiths Sage, old as he was, guided the miss as she busied, and would tell stories to her. Flight, fancy, battles warriors had one and told him. Mysteries of the dark black forest beyond where the dragons slept.

The dragons, nested. Just inside the grand gate. The skilled townsfolk busied and cared for them. The rust red flashed across the back of one, the marked claw torn and replaced with a simple form from a forge.

Another long and slender, curled about its own serpentine body, as attendants cleaned and ensured it would be well rested for its next journey. It lacked the wings of the others, yet when it flew, it soared with great might.

Another smaller, barely larger then a half dozen men. Sat near the gate, attentive, it always seemed prepared to be mounted for flight. The young girl who looked out over the square usually counted five to some ten dragons at any given time being tended to. Once, there had been as many as both fingers and toes could count. The proud creatures didn’t like it. Not at all.

Nila huddled as she often did, in the hideaway she had found years ago. The townsfolk had all but abandoned it when the new smithy across the square opened. The small area felt cramped, the townsfolk had used it for storage. Still, they rarely entered.She sat there, pencil in hand as she brushed along the canvas, illustrating each beast around the square with care. The great black forest beyond pitch black surrounded the town, as a moonless night with the exception of what she could only imagine as eyes. It wasn’t just one or two either, any time she glanced outside the gate, when it opened, a shiver of fear crawled down her spine and into her depths as she could feel them staring directly into her soul. As if they hungered for her.The day had started as any other, the teacher had fussed over her love of pictures, and writings and not her paying attention to the actual lessons he thought more important. He had done so time and time again.How could he understand the love of watching the townsfolk busy about the dragons. The beasts of the square. The dragons being the only safe passage to the nearest town.

Along the far side, a series of new young dragons of various types had made their small nests. Each one a shape, a size, a colour uniquely its own. Setting aside the sketch of the square, she glanced pleased from the scene before her and the likeness. It wasn’t perfect, not like some grand painter might create. It was one of her better ones if she was to be honest. She flipped open her notebook, having put the sketchbook aside, and had begun to scribble. Not likeness of images before her, but in words.— — —

The stall, as filthy and unkempt as it was, had become her secret place. Her safe place away from the world which seemed to always invade her space.

From her spot, she was always amazed at how much she could actually see. She would spend hours some days scribbling in her notebook or the sketchbook. The large square, the shops off to each side. The numerous tamed beasts that skittered or plodded across the clearing at the behest of the skilled townsfolk.

Huge lumbering black bears had been trained to move cargo from the dragons which had come in, now resting while unloaded. Mule Deer, hauled trailers full of products ready to be shipped out to others. Occasionally one roared and lifted its great front upwards. Others moved about, riding tamed bobcats, and large tamed mountain lions. Mighty, strong, and could kill a man with but a swipe of their large jaws.Rabbits and Hawks moved about the square, the hawks, soared from one dragon to another, occasionally taking a perch, and sharpening its beak, a squawk being heard drawing attention to a mark here or there that needed tending to. The rabbits skittering about them, tending to the ground beneath and around where they rested. A great amount of care was taken to ensure the comfort of each beast.

Nila paused with her pencil on the paper, telling her story as she saw it play out before her from her hiding place. Eyes shifted from her writings, to the illustration she had set aside a few moments ago. Her face screwed sideways as she considered the form of the great black bears. Something in the way one of them had just lumbered made her realize suddenly it wasn’t portrayed just right. She made a quick note in the corner of her page for her reference later, her mind on the story at this moment.

Nila’s pencil scratched across the page, “The townsfolk are lax,” she wrote, “it’s not been so long since the town was last attacked by the beasts of the great forest.” The memory of it made her heart hammer as she continued “The last time those eyes came alive and encroached frighteningly near, The lights, and flames had erupted just outside the protected runes that lit the gate.”

Nila continued to scribble. “Death had come for some, while others had warded off the evil omens which had come for them. At least one dragon, tamed as it had been, fled and was never recovered.”

Her eyes, then, shifted again to the Blacksmiths workshop across the way. She could make out the young worker, some called her a sage, some called her an apprentice. Nila simply muttered to herself, ‘amazing’. The young girl had lost her father during the last attack on the town when they where much younger.

Nila had watched her cry out in tears as the man had darted out and sealed the workshop in an attempt to save others. To repair the runes on the gate which had been struck by an attacking beast from that great Black beyond. It’s eyes always seemed to be watching.

She could remember the tears forming in her eyes as as the memories flooded in of the girl finally rushing out to embrace the man. By that time, he had been lifeless. Her cries had challenged the calls of the dragons in the square. Some would argue later that the young girl had silenced the mighty dragons from her tears alone.

“The town was special, it was known to all that lived there. The nature of the beasts, the nature of the people who lived in it, the only ones that may not know, were the truly young.” Nila continued to scratch on the paper. “The town’s history went back nearly a 100 years”, She paused as she remembered the Sage who often spent time with the girl repeat what she had been told in class, " as the historians told it. The old man instructor who would tell the Bard’s stories of events past made this clear to the children of the townsfolk. Attacks would come, and they’d survive,” Nila paused, considering her words carefully, “ they would prepare and become lax again as an old sage one day complained to her.” Nila took a deep breath as her eyes remained for a moment on the girl across the way.

The young girl, not far from Nila’s own age, sharpened her tools upon the large beasts egg. A runes tool waved across it. Nila could barely make out some details from the distance, yet she knew what she witnessed all the same from the times she had crept up on her for that closer look. The girl’s father, had always been there by her side. Guiding her and instructing her. Nila’s own heart pounded at the memories that flooded in from the past. She could recall clearly the day the man had brought the two giant eggs in from the pitch Black Forest of eyes beyond the gate. His dragon had been on the small side, barely able to hold him, and the eggs he had retrieved. The mighty dragon, small as it was, had not shown a single sign of exhaustion.

Nila had remembered the shiver in her spine as the eyes in the beyond seemed to twinkle angrily at her, at the townsfolk, at the man who held not just one, but two of theirs captured.A deep breath was taken as she paused. Her pencil resting for what seemed like an eternity. The stories she saw play out before her had been written down, her minds eye considered carefully what to include next.

— — —

The old Sage across the way and the girl, she had seemed suddenly dejected. “The apprentice to the sage ole Blacksmith seemed angry,” Nila began to scratch again, “a ritual was complete as many would understand it. The girl angrily hit the egg in defiance, In spite before she slid down out of sight along its outer shell.”

— — —

A grand roar outside the gates was suddenly heard disturbing the peace of routine, and the egg lifts suddenly. A strange sound of its own as if it was coming alive. The large door to the blacksmiths was slowly being sealed to trap the poor egg within. A whoosh and it had escaped while the girl chased after it. An attack had begun, the great roar of the dragons and beasts from the Black Pitch Forest had awoken it.

Nila kept writing the story in her small notebook. Marking each and every detail down, as vivid as she saw them. Maybe Bard’s would one day use her story for song. A brief memory of the girl’s father telling a story once that she had overheard. He way he gave each and every character their own voice, distinct, the old myths had come alive for her the first time she had overheard one from the place she had hidden. The man had even, occasionally winked at Nila, having caught her unawares in her hiding spot near them.

The memory faded as Nila watched the egg as it paused, spun, paused again as if waiting for something. As if looking at the girl who had struck it angrily. Another ROAR was heard from outside the gate as lights flashed, flames against the gate warded off by the runes, explosions became frequent as the mysteries of the pitch black came forth.

The dragons, within the square, had lifted themselves from their nests, with their riders ready, and launched. Each spreading their wings to answer the call of the great War Horn which was still sounding. It was less than a minute, and Nila craned her own neck to attempt to see the gate better. The egg had placed itself just out of her eyesight. A bright flash erupted near it and suddenly it was gone.

Nila startled as she heard her name called out angrily “Nila Eugenia Beatrice, You get your ass home NOW young lady. That ‘storage closet’ isn’t safe!” One of the younger townsfolk stepped into her view as she was suddenly ripped from her world.

The hanger stood there before her, the large and small craft preparing to be launched stood stark against the cold steel, many other ships already on their way out the large lit rimmed gateway to the pitch black of the stars beyond. The image of the town square and dragons had been shattered. The station had been attacked, and the mechanic who she knew well enough, had ushered her out of the hanger as she grasped furiously at her books so they’d not be lost. Her treasures couldn’t be left behind. The bulkhead blast door sealed as the man repeated himself “Go Home, You’re mothers probably worried”.

Nila lingered, watching through the great window of the corridor as the shape shifted again. The battle still ongoing just outside the gate, until she sensed the walkway to either side of her, the grand square sealed off by the runes. Ones she had no knowledge to push aside.

It was then that she saw the blacksmith's apprentice. The girl who always tended the egg, rush from the workshop. Her feet snapping against the ground as she fled past the guards just down the way. Nila quickly determined that her story, the journey, the MYTH, was escaping.

It didn’t take a second before her ankle turned, and she felt her feet pounding against the well trod dirt path taking her, and the girl before her, from from the towns square and the great pitch Black Forest beyond the rune protected gate and the mysteries within it.”